


another lesson to smile about

by nitorisource



Category: Free!
Genre: Angst, M/M, Unrequited Crush
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-21
Updated: 2014-09-21
Packaged: 2018-02-18 04:45:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2335799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nitorisource/pseuds/nitorisource
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He wants to catch every butterfly that’s ever fluttered bashfully in his stomach from all the times his eyes have landed on Sousuke - not just in the past few months, but through the years that he’s cultivated his silent, near-invisible crush.</p>
<p>It should have stayed that way. Silent, and non-existent.</p>
<p>Sousuke is thinking that too. As soon as he shakes away his initial shock at the confession, it’s there in his teal eyes - he wishes Makoto hadn’t said that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	another lesson to smile about

**Author's Note:**

> i put this off for so long

Makoto knows better than to plaster on a smile at a time like this. He knows it won’t work on him the way it does against the dozens of people he smiles his way through daily. He knows this to be a damn fact because Sousuke’s called him out on it more times than he’d care to admit in the past few months they’ve gotten to know each other.

All at once, encapsulated entirely in the few moments following his breathless, hopeful confession, Makoto wants to snatch all of it back.

“I like you, Sousuke.”

He desperately wants to reach into the past behind him and make it as though they never really experienced those endless hours of easy conversation, those lazy afternoons with only each other for company, those countless smiles he coaxed so easily from the other boy. He wants to catch every butterfly that’s ever fluttered bashfully in his stomach from all the times his eyes have landed on Sousuke - not just in the past few months, but through the years that he’s cultivated his silent, near-invisible crush.

It should have stayed that way. Silent, and non-existent.

Sousuke is thinking that too. As soon as he shakes away his initial shock at the confession, it’s there in his teal eyes - he wishes Makoto hadn’t said that.

“I can’t answer your feelings, Tachibana.” Sousuke picks his words carefully so that it doesn’t sound like an apology, because there’s no reason for him to be sorry over how he feels, and he doesn’t try to justify himself either. He knows it will do neither of them any good - who wants to hear the reasons why someone doesn’t like you? Who wants to hear a pitiful, hollow apology that will feel only like salt to a wound no matter how it’s said?

At least, that’s what he reasons until he notices exactly what his words have done to Makoto. As soon as his gaze flinches from the crystal-clear brokenness reflected in those moist, green eyes, Sousuke’s attention only manages to catch on the way Makoto’s lips tremble with uncertainty.

He can already hear it, the way Makoto will try to brush this off with a wave of his hands, with an apology he doesn’t need to give, with another shitty smile where he’ll bury underneath all the ache and agony he saves only for the company of himself. He can feel every moment they’ve taken to get along already slipping through both their fingers.

“I’m… sorry.”

Sousuke doesn’t know how to mean his words. He doesn’t know what he means when he says them. All he knows is that he doesn’t want to see Makoto this way. Knows that Makoto doesn’t need another problem to bury beneath the loving, carefree exterior he offers to everyone around him. Sousuke doesn’t want to become another problem that will eat its way through Makoto’s chest until it becomes so unbearable that he snaps. Again.

And now there it is. Makoto’s lips curve upwards. He blinks a few times but doesn’t move to wipe away the tears that drip down his cheeks.. He stands there, rubs the back of his neck as though this is some stupid, awkward moment, and he summons the gall to laugh. It’s weak, forced, so obviously laced with pain that Sousuke feels his own chest burning at the sound of it. It reminds Sousuke of standing in a summer shower, when the rain pours upon the earth despite a clear, sunny sky; where he can hardly see or make out the sheets of clear rain against the sun, but there’s no ignoring the way they soak straight through his clothes and plaster his hair to his forehead.

“No. No, I’m the one sorry. I wasted your time, I--”

Makoto pauses, swallows his next words.

The way Sousuke’s gone back to calling him Tachibana still has him reeling.

A part of him still desperately wants to kick and fight - to find the right words to convince Sousuke to give him a chance, but everything sticks in his throat and he can feel himself shrinking beneath Sousuke’s heavy, pained gaze.

“I’d still like to be your friend.” Makoto doesn’t budge beneath Sousuke’s words. “If you’ll let me.”

That’s not what Makoto wants to hear, but he nods anyway. He nods despite the molten, screaming ache in his chest that makes him want to fall to his knees and curl into a ball and disappear. Part of him wants to ask the terrible, gnawing questions - wants an explanation. If maybe Sousuke’s heart does belong to Rin, as he’s always feared, or if Sousuke is repulsed by the idea of being with a guy.

He’s never wanted much for himself, and before now, that’s been just fine. He thinks to himself, this is just his own mistake. For wanting someone too badly. Maybe, some day down the line, he’ll laugh at himself for feeling as though his entire world is being shredded and burned around him at something is typical as teenage rejection, even if, for now, it’s taking every ounce of strength not to buckle beneath the agony on his shoulders and chest.

“Thank you, Sousuke,” he says, and tries his best to mean it, though the sorry, pathetic laugh at the end of his sentence seems to betray him. He shuts his eyes as he smiles and finally begins to wipe away at the fat tears streaking down his face.

And he walks away without giving Sousuke another glance, and in turn Sousuke doesn’t try to stop him. With every step he takes, all his silly daydreaming of being held in Sousuke’s arms, of their hands intertwined while they walk idly down a street, of leaning up to press his lips against the forehead of the taller boy, of feeling himself swell with love and contention at the mere sight of Sousuke - they all begin to fall away.

It was his mistake for fooling himself into thinking any of that would ever truly happen.

He can’t decide whether being so far away in Tokyo will help mend his heart or not.


End file.
